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“You forgot about that pipe t’ing,” said Jubo.

“Oh yeah. There was this piece of pipe about a meter long, like a metal drainpipe or something. We had to hack through the rubble at the end of the jetty and stick this pipe in the hole and concrete round it. So’s the end was poking up out of the ground. Then we built the platform thing in front of that. There’s not enough concrete in there yet. Got to skim it off flat tomorrow, Steiner says.”

“Did he say what it’s gonna be?”

“He don’t say much at all today.” Jubo had a big grin on his face.

“Ha, ha! Feeling a bit poorly then, was he?”

“Sick as a dog, guy. T’row up twice in da first hour.”

“Good.”

“So what’s with all this bomb business?” Baz wanted to know. “Where did that idea come from? Was it Amit?” He and Ray were lying on their mattresses, waiting for lock-up. Ray rolled over sideways and propped himself up on one elbow.

“Not really. It was yesterday, when we were up by the sports center,” he murmured. “When Enoch said about growing potatoes. I thought – we could do that. We really could. This place’d be great if it was just us. Or as good as anywhere we’d ever find. It’s safe, and nobody else can get here. And then...” Ray looked down at his palms, picking at bits of loose skin. “I kind of went to sleep on the grass, and it was like it had already happened. I saw it. Everything had changed. It was sunny and we were all up on the playing field, kicking a ball around. And then you kicked the ball really hard and it went into the cabbages—”

“Cabbages?”

“Yeah. And you said, “Oh, we’ll never find it now. Never mind, we’ll play with a cabbage instead.” And so we all started kicking this big cabbage around. It was... fun. And then I woke up again, back to all this.”

Ray’s big eyes glanced around at the shabby room. “It could be different,” he said. “We could make it perfect.”

“But a bomb? I just don’t get it...”

“Nor do I, really. I was just trying to think of a way to make it happen. Like in one go. We can’t fight those guys, or get their guns or anything. But, you know, with a bomb... I dunno... maybe we could get ’em all in one place and just blow ’em all up at once. Then they’d be gone.”

Ray spoke as though killing people was nothing. Baz was shocked at the idea.

“So... say there was a button,” he said, “like on a cigarette lighter, and all you had to do was press the button, and that would kill all the divers and Preacher John, and Steiner and Hutchinson. You’d do that, would you?”

Ray turned towards him, a steady look from beneath thick dark lashes, eyebrows raised in mild surprise. “Well, yeah. Wouldn’t you?”

Baz almost laughed. Ray looked at his most innocent when he was making the most outrageous statements.

“Um... don’t know. Don’t know whether I could.”

“Depends on what you care about, doesn’t it? You’d do anything for people you really care about.” Ray looked at Baz for a long moment. Then he said, “I mean, you’ve got a dad, right? So say Preacher John had a gun to your dad’s head. Wouldn’t you press the button on a cigarette lighter to save him?”

“Course I would. Yeah.”

“Well, then. Same thing.”

Same thing as what? What was the same thing?

On Tuesday Baz was back on jetty duty, along with Taps, Dyson and Jubo. Together they climbed the steep path that led up to the playing fields.

When they reached the construction site, Dyson said, “OK. We need water, sand and chippings. Taps and Baz do the water cart. Me and Jubo’ll do the barrows.”

The water cart stood at one end of the sports center building. It was a big oval-shaped drum, galvanized metal, fixed into a tubular frame. The frame had two wheels, and had a handle at the front to pull the cart along. Baz noticed that the tires looked a bit flat.

“How do we fill it up?” he said. “Buckets?” There were a couple of these lying around – yellow plastic ones.

“Yes,” said Taps. “But not right to the top, or it becomes too heavy. We put ten bucketfuls in.” Then he looked at Baz and added, “That’s five buckets each.”

“No kidding?” Baz picked up one of the plastic buckets and went over to the nearest water barrel. He hopped up onto the stack of concrete blocks that the barrel stood on, intending to dip his bucket over the side, but Taps said, “No. You must fill it from the tap.”

“Huh? Oh, right.” Baz hadn’t noticed the plastic fitting on the side of the barrel. He jumped down to the ground, put his bucket under the tap and turned it on.

Taps came and stood beside him as the bucket began to fill up. “One, elephant, two, elephant, three...”

“What?”

Taps was counting under his breath. “Thirty-one seconds,” he said hurriedly. “That’s what it should come to... seven, elephant, eight...” He continued to count, but on his fingers now, nodding in time as he tapped the end of each finger.

“Yes. Thirty-one.” He leaned forward and quickly switched off the tap. “That’s enough now. You can put it in the water cart.”

Baz blew out his cheeks. “OK,” he said, and picked up the bucket. He could see that this might take some time.

But Taps seemed to like filling the buckets, and Baz was happy to let that be his job. He stared out across the overgrown playing field and watched Old Bill, the white goat, as Taps counted his elephants. It was a rare moment of peace, if a slightly weird one, and Baz thought about Ray’s dream with the cabbages. He could see the field with things growing in it, potatoes maybe, and beans, as well as cabbages. And Old Bill could be there too, munching away at the grass, with no worries. Just as he was now. Lucky Old Bill.

Taps was still filling the bucket. Baz suddenly felt that he wanted to reach out to this strange kid, to try and be a bit kind to him.

“Taps,” he said, “is everything OK? You getting by all right?”

Taps carried on counting, and Baz wasn’t sure that he’d heard the question. “Twenty-nine, elephant, thirty, elephant, thirty-one.” Taps had finished filling the bucket. He stood up straight and looked at Baz, his pale-grey eyes serious and troubled. “They made you go down the hole, didn’t they? Yes. They did it to me too. When I first came here. And they put the cover on and left me down there in the dark. It was just a joke – a bit of fun. But I was so scared that I... well, you know. It was all in my shorts. I didn’t think anyone would know, because my clothes were all so messy anyway, but they did know. Everybody knew. Your friend Ray, he’s not going to go down there, is he? I heard him say so.”

“Well...” Baz started to speak.

“I shan’t go down there again either.” Taps looked up at the sky. “I wish I could make the days longer,” he said. “Like in summer. The days are longer in summer because the heat makes them expand. Did you know that? The heat makes everything expand and the cold makes everything contract. Like distances. Most people don’t know that, but the distances between places keep changing with the temperature. It’s never quite the same.”

“Er... right. Yeah, you’re probably right, Taps. Come on. We’d better go.”

“I was just going to say that! Yes. We’d better go.”

Taps walked round to the front of the water cart. He grabbed the handle and waited for Baz to join him.

“I try not to forget things, you know, but sometimes I can’t help it. Like with the hymn books. It’s not my fault, is it?”

“No. Course not.” Baz pulled experimentally at the handle of the water cart. God, the thing was heavy.

“That’s what I said to Hutchinson. But he said it was my fault, and that it was my fault that he got into trouble with Isaac.”

“Yeah?”

“And the days are shorter than they used to be. Now that it keeps raining and cooling everything down. It makes the time go faster.”

Baz was having difficulty understanding Taps at all. He could think of nothing else to say, and so he kept quiet for a bit.

It was hard work pulling the water cart around the perimeter of the playing field. The load was heavy, and the tires needed more air. But once they got to the top of the steep pathway that led down to the jetty it became a matter of holding the cart back rather than pulling it along.

Baz and Taps both clung to the handle, leaning backwards in order to keep the water cart from running away with them, and struggling to steer it at the same time.

All of this was bad enough, but Baz realized that Taps was barely concentrating on the job in hand. He was whispering to himself once again, counting his footsteps as they staggered down the hill.

“Four-forty-four, four-forty-five—”

“Whoa – look out, Taps! Watch where we’re going!” The cart veered into the side of the path and rocked to a halt. Water slopped out of the galvanized container, splashing down onto the tarmac.

“What are you 
doing?”
Baz was getting annoyed.

“Sorry,” said Taps. “I was just working something out. I like to know, you see.”

“Working what out?” Baz pushed down on the handle of the water cart in order to try and slew it round.

“It should be eight hundred and forty-two steps from the pile of chippings to the end of the jetty. Must be further, though, from the sports center. Subtract the two, you see, and then you have the distance from the sports center to the chippings.”

Baz was about to ask what the hell difference that should make to anyone – or at least to anyone who was sane – but he managed to stop himself. There was no point in getting mad at Taps. The poor kid obviously had problems. And if it was important to him to know how many footsteps between one place and another, or how many elephants it took to fill a bucket, then so what?

At any rate, he just sighed and said, “It’s OK, Taps. Come on. Grab the handle.”

The others were waiting for them by the time they got down to the jetty.

“Where’ve you been, you little freaks? We’ve been stood here ten minutes.” Steiner sounded as though he was in another great mood.

Baz and Taps dragged the water cart along the jetty, bringing it right up to where the new concrete platform was being built.

Steiner stood pointing at the ground with his finger, indicating where he wanted the cart to be. As they came to a halt, Baz heard Taps whisper, “Eight-thirty-seven. Phew.”

A grey pile of sand and chippings and cement stood ready mixed and waiting on the flattened stone pathway in front of the platform construction. It looked like a volcano, its center hollowed out so that water could be added.

“Where’re the buckets?” said Steiner.

“Er... didn’t bring any,” said Baz. “Do we need some, then?”

“Course we 
need
 some, you rat’s fart. How do you think we’re gonna tip the water into t’ mix if we’ve got no buckets?”

“Oh, right. Sorry...”

“Jesus. Have you got chuffin’ bricks for brains, or what? Right – I’ve had enough. Get back up top, the lot of you. Fill t’ barrows up again, four o’ chippings and one o’ sand, and this time don’t forget the friggin’ buckets. I want this batch mixed and another ready to go by the time I’m back. Ten minutes.” Steiner strode off along the jetty, shoulders slumped forward, hands in the pockets of his shorts.

“The guy make an early start today,” said Jubo, once Steiner was out of earshot.

“Yeah, right.”

The four boys climbed the hill once more, Dyson and Jubo pulling their barrows behind them, Baz and Taps carrying the shovels. When they got to the top, Dyson said, “Taps, there’s a couple of buckets over by that pile of sand. You might as well grab those – quicker than going over to the sports center. The rest of us’ll fill the barrows. See you back down there.”

“Yes. All right then.”

Baz said, “What shall I do, sand or chippings?” and Dyson replied, “Sand. We only need one barrowload of that.”

“OK.”

Baz took one of the barrows, put a shovel in it and wheeled it over to the pile of sand. Taps was already there, holding a bright yellow bucket in each hand, but looking confused.

“You OK?” said Baz. He picked up his shovel.

Taps blinked up at the sky as if he were searching for some answer up there. “I’ve forgotten it now,” he said. “Was it nine-thirty-seven? I think it was nine-thirty-seven.”

“What?”

But Taps didn’t reply. He put both feet together, and then stepped forward, walking purposefully away from Baz as though he was pacing out the length of a cricket pitch.

“One, two, three...”

There was something about the way his head wobbled from side to side, the way his big red ears stuck out, that made Baz feel another pang of sorrow for Taps. But then he shrugged and turned towards the pile of sand. He had problems enough of his own.

The barrow was heavy, and Baz struggled to keep up with Jubo as he descended the hill. Already his hands were starting to hurt. The skin on his palms hadn’t had a chance to heal properly, and Baz knew that he would be bleeding again before long.

But at least there was some air. A rare breeze had sprung up, and the distant sea looked choppy, flecks of white visible on the surface, almost like real waves.

Jubo, just in front of Baz, half turned his head and shouted, “Ey, Dyson! What this t’ing supposed to be we building?”

“How should I know? Nobody tells me anything.” Dyson’s voice from some way behind.

The concrete platform looked tiny from this height. It stood at the end of the jetty, a square of grey against the pinkish-colored chipping pathway that led up to it. Maybe it was the foundation for some new building, Baz thought, although it seemed hardly big enough to put a shed on. He saw the little figure of Taps appearing far below, carrying a bucket in each hand, milkmaid-fashion, as he stepped out onto the jetty.

Taps wore shorts and sandals, and a red, white and blue striped T-shirt. With his two yellow buckets he looked quite colorful, a sunny kid who might have been on his way to the beach to look for crabs. In another life.

The sound of a voice drifted up – a faint shout – and Baz looked over to the right. He saw Steiner coming across from the direction of the school building, not hurrying, just strolling along the tarmac pathway, hands still in his pockets. Maybe the shout was for Taps and maybe it wasn’t. Shouting came naturally to Steiner. He probably did it in his sleep.